#eliwhitetail

@eli-whitetail​

the snort that lodged in the back of his throat wasn’t loud enough to bounce back off the metal walls of the bunker, but it was just loud enough for linny to hear. he still had that pride about him - the same pride that had made mince-meat of his shoulder and had seen his whitetails slaughtered.

where she once would have had pity for that consuming pride, linny now felt nothing but annoyance at it. this wasn’t day one in the bunker. they were months into this new reality now, things had to start changing soon, because he and wheaty were still too closely entwined and she wasn’t going to watch him drag wheaty down with him.

‘ you were wrong, eli. do you understand that? wrong. the father didn’t make the collapse happen. he saw what was coming and you chose not to listen. that’s on you. ’

the snort that broke the silence wasn’t eli’s this time, it was linny’s and she had to do her utmost to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the ceiling of the bunker - she was well aware of her place in the project. she was one of hundred of pawns

‘ i might be a gullible kid eli, but at least i was willing to listen. you weren’t and you led the whitetails to their deaths - you nearly led wheaty to his death. ’

ears straining to make sure there was not distant murmuring of voices or echoing footsteps and linny took a step towards the older man, canting her head to the side

‘ you think you’re so much different from jacob? stop ... if you told wheaty to jump, he’d ask how high. if someone took a shot at you, he’d throw himself in front of it ... he believes every thing you tell him. every syllable that falls from your mouth; your own perfect little pawn. ’

so this was the guy who’d led the whitetails before wheaty? and the guy who’d been in the bullet farm ... shit. he’d dropped a ball on that one. probably should have spent a little more time figuring out just who tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum had had in there.

Out of all people from her past to make a resurgence, it had to be Eli. She tried to deceive him, tried to lure him into a trap and while it failed, she’d succeeded numerous times before with his people. Dozens of lives were on her hands. Their weight lessened over the years, but she never forgot what she’d done, the person she became. It was true, Jacob had moulded her into the Lady in Red, a weapon without sharp edges but just as deadly, and yet she did nothing to stop it. She was part of the problem. She didn’t fight it anymore, merely accepting the role that had been carved for her. And she never left, still working alongside the eldest Seed, still tied to him by an invisible string.

Eli’s survival would... complicate things. He was supposed to die, each measure carefully taken by Jacob to ensure his death, but here he stood, alive and pissed off.

Sara grunted as she was shoved against the wall. Her arrow fell to the ground at their feet and Eli kept the hand that held her bow pinned, rendering her weapon useless. Teeth grit, she turned her head to meet his fiery gaze. Age had worn both of them down, but it seemed to harden Eli—his eyes dark like coals and his skin tough and weathered.

Fingers curling, she made a move to squirm against Eli’s hold, but thought better of it. Any more commotion and the guards would be on them.

@thefcther​​ // ( soulmate prompts || always accepting )

29. the one where your soulmate’s ghost haunts you when they die.

*Also under a read more because I have no sense of control or when to stop.

There was little way of knowing who your soulmate was until it was too late. Rook heardplenty of stories about it from other people. Some had gotten lucky, had foundtheir soulmate before they died and then when they did pass it was hard but they at least had been able tolive a life together and knew it was their destiny to be together once more.  She sometimes wondered if she’d already mether soulmate, but never pursued them because she was a guarded person. The typeto make friends, and get along with people, but never pursue anything behind aone-night stand or friends with benefits type of situation. Not that she evenallowed much of those either. Whenshe gets to Hope County there’s a small part of her that wonders if the personshe was meant to be with was here, in Montana.

It’s a little easier, for that reason, to get alongwith the locals. There are a few that she wants nothing to do with. Drubman Seniorcomes to mind, but overall she falls in easily with the locals and they arehappy to have someone from the city to tease. Though as one mournfully pointedout at the Spread Eagle one night, “You’renothing like what I would’ve figured.” Which she took as a compliment andan insult all rolled into one. There were plenty of outdoors-types in the city,especially in Washington and Oregon and she just happened to be one of them.She easily adapted to the lack of GPS, to spotty cell-service. She’d need tomemorize the routes for working with the sheriff’s department and the ambulancecrew as well. Creed kept active and would often pass early morning fishermen onher runs who got used to seeing her sprinting through the countryside.

earphone dangling from one ear, the other giving anyone she passed a demo of the song she was listening to - way too loud, but what teenager ever cared about the volume? besides, she was trying to learn the song. best way to learn anything new?

repetition.

humming along to the first few chords of the tune, linny was on autopilot as she maneuvered her way up to the main level of the wolf’s den. the woman on the track started singing after a few bars of instrumental and linny was mumbling along with it, paying no need to the racks of good as she passed through the food store.

stepping over some new bags of rice that hadn’t quite found a home on the shelves yet, the teenager made a mental note to see if she could do some sorting in the place after she borrowed wheaty’s guitar. it wouldn’t take too long, actually maybe she could do a full stock-take?

it’d kill a few hours and at least it was something that would be useful to eli or tammy?

yeah, good - she could swing by wheaty’s room, grab his guitar, then stop by his work station and grab a refill pad to write on - he was off out with walker on a mission, so he wouldn’t mind.

‘... i’ve been sleepwalking, been wanderin’ all night ...’

the guitar on the track still strummed along artist’s solemn lyrics and linny was half-singing and half-mumbling the words alongside the track, bracing a hand on the entrance to wheaty’s room, she swung inwards and grabbed the guitar from its perch in the corner just inside the doorway. swinging back out again, linny had just enough time to loop her arm through the instrument’s strap before she walked full-pelt into someone.

jumping with surprise, she was thankful her arm was already through the strap because, sure as shit, she would have dropped wheaty’s guitar otherwise ... if she hadn’t dropped it from the shock of someone being right there and her being shunted out of her own little world, then the teenager was certain she would have dropped it the second she looked up and saw who she’d walked into.

eli.

no biggie, not like he was a stranger, or she was up to something she wasn’t meant to be doing, she was completely allowed free roam of the den ... but he was ... wet.

and only had a towel around his waist.

and he had a lot of tattoos ... and scars. and muscles ... had his arms always been like that? the shirt only showed off his forearms, which were covered in tattoos.

he had abs too.

and he was staring at her just as much as she was staring at him.

‘ i ... i, uh, i was sleepwalking — fuck, no. sorry. that’s the song. i meant stocktake ... or that’s what i wanted the guitar for. ’ nope, that wasn’t right either. wow, one flustered second and all her words tried to jump out together, huh?

pulling a face at her own mental-jumble. linny narrowed her gaze, leaning in closer as she spotted why something seemed a little different.

‘ — did you cut your hair and shave? ’

@eli-whitetail

He was a light sleeper - it came from a combination of his years in the military, mixed together with the comings and goings of living in the Den. And the constant pressure of being hunted by Jacob and his peggies added to that habit too.

So Eli started awake when he heard the footsteps, sitting upright and already half out of the small bed when he saw Linny. Sitting back on the small camp bed beside the map table, he rubbed his eyes and offered a tired smile at the teenager.

“Don’t worry about it, you okay?” Eli looked Linny up and down, automatically suspicious as to why she was creeping around the bunker this hour of the night.

she had asked him for something to do - a purpose or chore to keep her occupied in the narrow hallways of the wolf’s den, but what he’d asked had left her reeling; point out john seed’s silos so that the deputy dutch was helping could destroy them.

it was a line in the sand that she’d shied away from. fear and maybe the lingering grasp of faith had her cowed and stuttering over an excuse of not knowing the locations - knowing the whole time that eli could tell she was lying.

but guilt had crept in and refused to let her sleep. one of wheaty’s shirts hung around her frame, linny had traversed the quiet halls of the wolf’s den in her bare feet, trying not to wake up any of the slumbering whitetails until she’d reached the monitor room.

shaking her head at the man’s question, linny moved over to the map spread out on the table - one eye watching all the different feeds. picking up a pencil, she leaned down to draw a black cross on the map, just to the north west of rae-rae’s pumpkin farm.